


The Leap Home

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Quinntum Leap [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Multi, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Quinn wakes up from her accident and tells Puck and Finn that she's had a vision of an awful future, the two boys are drawn into an unexpected relationship with her and with each other. The connection between them runs deeper than even Quinn realizes. After Quinn ends their nonsexual menage a trois, can they find a way to still make it work between the two of them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leap Home

**Author's Note:**

> [Fanmix](http://patchfire.livejournal.com/770295.html) by patchfire. (Direct download [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/76970aibcf5kejz/TheLeapHome.zip?dl=0).)

Puck is almost certain that he’s something of a genius. His initial comment to Finn and Quinn that the three of them should all be dating was spontaneous and mostly a reaction to the fact that for the second time in days, he and Finn had been throwing punches. Sure, he and Finn were going through a rough patch, mostly of Puck’s own making—even though he blamed the glee club for part of it, too—but that didn’t mean Puck _liked_ fighting with Finn. He also didn’t really want to watch Finn and Quinn pretend that the baby was theirs or anything like that. The three of them dating was a close to perfect solution, and Puck had realized it after saying it. He’s still a little disappointed that their dating hasn’t yet included actual sex as a threesome, but there’s still time. 

Puck is more than willing to steer the three of them together, whatever it takes; Finn hadn’t been wrong when he’d said Puck would have run over him if he hadn’t gone to Breadstix that first Saturday. Puck would have gone only for Finn’s toes or something, but the issue did have to be forced. Who knows how long it would have taken them if Finn had skipped out on that date? Since Finn had gone, though, it’d been relatively easy for the two of them to figure out a date to more or less surprise Quinn with. Puck had made sure they were playing up that it was all three of them dating each other, not just he and Finn sharing Quinn, even though that had exactly been Finn’s initial objection. 

He’d be lying, though, if he said that the two of them being all coupley first thing on Monday morning hadn’t stung a little, all things considered, and maybe it wasn’t one hundred percent fair to Rachel, but Puck hadn’t made her any kind of promises. As it was, she was more or less using Puck to try to make Finn jealous, too. Rachel, Puck figures, is probably still disappointed, since by the next day, Finn wasn’t jealous and Puck had gone back to ignoring her unless they had to interact in glee club. Puck, on the other hand, had had a very satisfactory outcome, fighting and all, and he’d more or less ridden that high until Thursday afternoon, when all of Tanaka’s crap had gone down and Finn had temporarily quit glee club while the rest of the guys on the team did stay in glee club. Puck doesn’t know why Tanaka had decided to make that ultimatum, but he’s pretty sure Finn said something to Tanaka to make him change his mind. 

After that, things with the three of them seem to be about as good as Puck thinks any of them could expect, given the fact that they’re all fifteen or sixteen and one of them’s pregnant. Things are probably the weirdest still between him and Finn, which Puck mostly chalks up to going from best friends to fighting to dating all within a short time frame, with some parts of that overlapping. He’d be lying if he said all of that wasn’t in the back of his mind at the end of the Thursday glee club rehearsal a week later, when he elbows Finn’s arm. 

“Want to come over, play some Mario?” Puck asks. “You can tell Carole we’ve got a group project in English.” Puck’s still never been sure what Carole has against video games on school nights, since it’s not like Finn would be doing homework most of the time. 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. “Are we going to have Quinn over, too?”

“Do you really think Quinn wants to play Mario?” Puck asks. 

“Probably not.”

“If we even asked, she’d probably roll her eyes at us,” Puck says as they walk out to the parking lot. “I can tell Mom you’re staying for dinner, if you want to.” 

“Sure. That’ll be cool,” Finn says. 

“Awesome.” Puck knows it mostly feels like hanging out always has, grabbing some snacks when they get there and then going in Puck’s room to turn on Mario. Puck thinks it’s possible that they’re sitting a little more closely together than they would have before, but he’s not sure, which might say something on its own. 

When he stretches and starts to stand up to get more pop, though, he looks over at Finn, and decides to follow through on the sudden impulse in his brain. He grins at Finn and then leans in quickly and kisses him, pulling back while he’s still grinning. Finn ducks his head, his cheeks turning pink, but he smiles back. Puck goes and grabs two more cans of pop, and when he’s sitting down, he kisses Finn again, this time making it last a little longer. 

“Good?” Puck asks as he picks up the controller again. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He bumps his leg against Puck, still smiling. 

Puck focuses on the screen for a few seconds. “You want to keep playing, or you want to do more of that?” 

Finn looks up from his controller. “Did _you_ want to?”

“Why would I ask if I didn’t?” Puck says. “Is that a yes?” 

Finn nods. “Yeah. I mean, yes, it’s a yes.”

“Cool,” Puck says, tossing his controller down and turning towards Finn. He studies Finn’s face for a few seconds, then kisses him, lips slightly parted. Finn kisses back enthusiastically, grabbing at Puck’s clothes to hold him close. Puck puts his weight into it, pushing into Finn and throwing off their balance a little while they keep kissing. Finn topples over onto the sofa with Puck on top of him. Puck grabs at Finn’s hair with one hand, probably pulling it a little, and opens his mouth more, waiting to see what Finn does. 

Finn makes a little squeak and grabs Puck’s shirt harder. Puck would laugh, but it’s a perfect opportunity to slip his tongue into Finn’s mouth, so that’s what he does. Finn doesn’t seem to mind, though, since he just keeps on kissing Puck, this time with tongues. Puck doesn’t pull away until it seems like they both probably need to breathe, and he grins at Finn. 

“Kind of more fun than Mario, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees breathlessly.

“You want to just make out until my mom gets home?” Puck asks. 

“Definitely, yeah,” Finn says. 

“Awesome.” Puck knows he might be grinning a little too widely, but neither of them seem to care, and he drops back on top of Finn heavily as they start kissing again. They keep kissing right up until the moment that Puck hears the rattle of his mom’s twenty-year-old Volvo, and he pushes himself up enough to talk. “Just playing Mario, right?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Just Mario.”

Puck laughs and stands up long enough for Finn to sit up, then plops back down beside him. He picks up the controller and notices they’re _definitely_ sitting closer than they were before, but he doesn’t move. When his mom comes in, he looks up long enough to tell her that Finn’s staying for dinner, which doesn’t even get a real response, just a nod and a wave. 

“We’re good,” Puck says to Finn. 

“Cool,” Finn says. “You’re sure this is all okay with Quinn?”

“It’s cool if you have dinner with her and not me or whatever, so why wouldn’t it be?” Puck says. 

Finn shrugs. “Because she’s, you know,” he lowers his voice, “pregnant.”

“I’ll talk to her if it makes you feel better,” Puck offers. “Just don’t say anything until then.” 

“Okay, I won’t,” Finn says.

Puck looks around long enough to confirm his mom’s still in her bedroom, then kisses Finn very fast. “At least I brought you over for Swiss steak night.” 

“I really like Swiss steak. Your mom’s is the best,” Finn says. 

“I know you do,” Puck says. “That makes me the best.” 

“You know you’re the best,” Finn says. “You don’t need me to say it.”

Puck grins to himself and slumps against the sofa and Finn’s side. “But you still said it.” 

“Okay, you’re the best,” Finn says. 

Puck doesn’t respond, just elbows Finn gently, and eventually Puck’s mom finishes dinner, they eat, play a little more, and then Finn heads home. Puck doesn’t get a chance to talk to Quinn before the weekend, and when they get back to school on Monday, Quinn seems preoccupied enough that Puck figures it’s better not to bother her with clarifying what is and isn’t fine, especially since Quinn’s telling more people about being pregnant and clearly doing some kind of big planning. 

On Friday, Finn and Puck go back and forth a few times, trying to decide whose house to crash at, but it turns out to be irrelevant since Terri Schuester told Quinn’s parents that Quinn was pregnant. They spend a lot of the weekend getting things settled, including Puck’s mom and Finn’s mom finding out, which means Puck still doesn’t think it’s a good time to talk to Quinn. 

By Thursday, though, Puck can tell Quinn’s scheming again, and judging by the looks she gives Kurt and then sidelong at Finn or Puck, Puck figures it’s about the way Kurt’s still making eyes at Finn. When rehearsal ends, Puck elbows Finn. “Mario again?” 

“Is that, like, our code word now?” Finn asks.

“I can be explicit if you want me to,” Puck says with a raised eyebrow. 

“I kinda like the code word, though.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes to my question, then,” Puck says, throwing his arm over Finn’s shoulders as they head to the parking lot. He keeps his one hand on Finn most of the drive, and walks them past the living room into Puck’s bedroom. “Didn’t figure we needed, what’s that word Quinn used the other day? Pretext?” 

“Nah, I don’t need that,” Finn says. “I’m not that other thing Quinn says. Subtle.”

“Yeah, I don’t think either of us are,” Puck says. He closes his bedroom door and then basically launches himself at Finn, kissing him hard and pushing the two of them towards the bed. Finn falls back onto the bed, pulling Puck down on top of him. Puck plants his hands on the bed and moves around until he feels comfortable, one of his legs falling between Finn’s legs, and he more or less pushes his tongue into Finn’s mouth. 

Finn press himself up against Puck’s leg, and Puck can feel how hard Finn’s dick is. He moves his leg a little, pulling back to watch Finn’s face, and he raises an eyebrow as he presses back on Finn’s dick. He’s never actually seen another guy come, but it suddenly seems like a pretty good idea. Finn makes a kind of panicky-sounding whine, pressing his dick against Puck’s leg again. 

“That’s good, yeah?” Puck says, finding a little rhythm of sliding and pressing with his leg. 

“Uh huh, yeah,” Finn says. He whines again. “Puck.”

“Are you going to come?” Puck asks, pressing harder and sliding a little faster. “’Cause that’d be so cool.” 

“Uh huh,” Finn says, squeezing his eyes tightly closed as he grinds up against Puck’s leg. 

Puck puts more weight into it as he rubs his leg on Finn, still watching Finn’s face. “Yeah, c’mon, I want to see.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn more or less squeaks. He grinds against Puck’s leg a few times before making a high-pitched whine and shuddering. Puck stops moving his leg and stares at Finn for a few moments.

“Holy shit,” Puck says. “Can I…?”

“Huh?” Finn asks. His face is pink and he sounds dazed. 

Puck half-rolls onto his side, pressing _his_ dick against _Finn’s_ leg. “You know. Come too.” 

“Oh. Oh yeah, that’s cool,” Finn says, lifting his leg some to push against Puck. 

“Cool.” Puck drops his head as he moves against Finn, pushing down a little harder after a few moments. He doesn’t have long time to process how it feels beyond ‘good’ before he can tell he’s about to come, not quite as fast as Finn but still pretty fast. He flops down half on top of Finn afterwards, blowing a raspberry on Finn’s neck. 

Finn squirms away. “Ew!”

Puck laughs and grabs Finn’s shoulder, tugging him close enough to blow another raspberry. “That’s what you say ‘ew’ about? Not the way our jeans are going to feel in about five more minutes?” 

“Double ew, then,” Finn says, “but it was still awesome.”

“Oh, yeah, it was.” Puck laughs. “Best game of Mario ever.” 

“We could play Mario every day,” Finn says.

“Awesome.” Puck blows a third raspberry on Finn’s neck and then kisses him. “We can just lie here for awhile.” 

“Yeah, okay, you can cuddle me if you want to,” Finn says. 

“I’m not cuddling, I’m just lying on top of you.” 

“Yeah, but you _wanna_ cuddle.”

“Shut up,” Puck grumbles, but he slings his arm across Finn’s chest and moves around enough to get comfortable. “You do too.” 

“Never said I didn’t, just said you did,” Finn says. 

“Don’t tell anyone.” 

“Your secret will die with me,” Finn promises. 

Puck snorts and rubs his face against Finn’s neck. “Dork.” 

“You were right, though,” Finn says. 

“Of course I was.” Puck stops. “Wait, about what?” 

“My jeans feel totally gross now.”

Puck snorts again. “Worth it, though.” He’s pretty sure that the two of them fall asleep for at least a few minutes, but they wake up before Puck’s mom gets home, and Puck digs out a pair of Finn’s shorts that he’d left at Puck’s over the summer. It’s a little cold outside for shorts, but better cold than come, Puck figures. 

Since Puck texts Finn on Sunday with a single word—Mario—and since that makes everything a definite pattern and a _thing_ they’re doing, Puck decides that he has to follow through and actually talk to Quinn. 

He finds her during lunch on Tuesday, and sure, he fudges the extent of what he and Finn have done. Quinn probably wouldn’t want to know the details, anyway, and the point isn’t exactly what they’re doing, just that they’re doing it. Quinn’s fine with it, like Puck figured she would be, and once class starts after lunch and the teacher tunes them out, Puck pulls out his phone. 

He goes to his texts with Finn and types out a new one. _Mario’s fine w Q. This afternoon?_

_YES_

Puck laughs out loud for a few seconds, just long enough for the teacher to notice that he’s not focused on whatever it is they’re supposed to be learning. “Did you have an insight for us, Mr. Puckerman?” 

“Uh.” Puck shrugs. “Code words?” 

The teacher looks surprised, and Puck figures he inadvertently hit on something. “Perhaps a better phrase would be coded language, but yes,” the teacher says, and then continues on talking about something else. Puck grins to himself and waits another minute or two before he responds to Finn. 

_Think I accidentally contributed to class. Skip football?_

_ITSA ME MARIO_

_Accents aren’t THAT sexy_ Puck sends, then chews on the inside of his cheek for a few moments. Maybe that was too blatant. There’s not really any kind of guidelines for when someone starts threesome-dating their best friend. 

_u think im sexy_

Puck starts to type three or four responses before settling on just two words. _Dork. Duh?_

_im the sexiest_

Puck keeps himself from laughing out loud or grinning too much, which is probably good, since there’s pretty much no chance that he blurts out another good answer. _You’re going to get me in trouble in class. Maybe I’ll just skip after this._

_oh no twist my arm_

After checking the time, Puck raises his hand and asks to go to the bathroom, and he takes his backpack when he leaves the room, despite the teacher’s frown. Once he’s in the hall, he pulls his phone back out. 

_What class do you even have right now_

_spanish_

_Tell schue you had a glee club insight and have to go_

_MARIO_

Puck laughs into his sleeve, walking towards Mr. Schuester’s classroom and keeping an eye out for any other teachers. Puck isn’t really sure what any of this means – skipping school and making plans is different from happening to make out when they’re hanging out, but that was still different from being involved as part of a threesome with Quinn. Quinn isn’t that interested in anything beyond kissing, which Puck guesses he can probably understand, but Puck is, and Finn seems to be, too, which in theory and so far in practice seems to work out. 

Neither of them have really brought up what it might mean, aside from Finn’s initial objection that people would think they were gay. They’re not, but Puck can admit they’re clearly not really straight, either, whatever that means. This isn’t just convenience or a way to share Quinn, and Puck guesses that sooner or later they might have to think about what that means. Preferably later. 

He gets to the end of the hall with Mr. Schuester’s classroom just as the door opens, and Puck stops, leaning against the wall. Finn exits the classroom, looking surprised but happy to see Puck there.

“Hey,” Finn says. “I didn’t realize you’d be waiting right here.”

“Teachers get suspicious if you loiter too long near the class you got the hall pass from,” Puck says. “And I already had laughed during the lecture in the class.” 

“Sorry,” Finn says sheepishly.

“You aren’t, really,” Puck says. He throws his arm around Finn’s shoulder. “Are you?” 

“Nah, not really, since it got both of us out of class,” Finn admits. 

“That’s what I figured. Your place or mine?” 

“I’ve got leftover pizza at my house.”

Puck grins and responds without pausing to really think. “Talking dirty to me now?” 

“We could eat it naked,” Finn says. 

“As long as it’s not too hot, anyway,” Puck says as they finally get away from the school and into the parking lot. “Hot shit on my skin is not a kink I have.” 

“We could eat it cold,” Finn says. 

“Okay.” Puck waits until they get to Finn’s to bring it up again. “You really want to eat it naked?” he asks as Finn pulls the box out of the refrigerator. 

Finn shrugs. “We can if you want to.”

“Just didn’t want to start stripping if you weren’t cool with it,” Puck says, which is more or less true. They’ve been making out and grinding, and they’ve been naked in front of each other in the locker room for years, but they haven’t been deliberately naked alone yet, so he figures it’s the kind of thing you double-check. Once they’re upstairs in Finn’s room with the pizza, he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor, glancing at Finn. 

Finn takes his shirt off, too, letting it drop. He looks at Puck nervously as he starts to undo his jeans. Puck nods a little and shucks off his jeans, kicking them to the side and watching Finn. Finn slowly pushes his own jeans down, his face turning a little red in the process. 

“C’mon, don’t make me look underdressed,” Puck says. He sits down on the edge of Finn’s bed and takes a slice of pizza out of the box. 

“Not my fault you don’t wear underwear,” Finn mutters, starting to push down his boxers. 

“It’s constricting,” Puck says. “You should try going commando sometime.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Finn says. 

“It’s faster, too.” 

Finn shifts in place, moving his hands in front of him to cover his junk. “It would, like, chafe or something.”

“You have no real argument,” Puck says, feeling like he’s won something but not sure what. “Oh, come over here, you know it’s not like we haven’t seen it before.” 

“It feels different, just standing around with nothing on,” Finn complains. “I feel weird.”

“Which is why you should sit down. And move your hands. Of course you feel weird standing there like someone ripped your towel away,” Puck says in what sounds like a reasonable tone to him. Finn makes a grumpy face and sits down next to Puck on the edge of the bed.

“There. I sat,” Finn says.

Puck rolls his eyes and puts down the slice of pizza, then scoots until he’s bumping into Finn. “Now move your hands.” 

Finn hesitates for a few seconds before moving his hands away. “I still feel weird.”

“Yeah?” Puck pauses, trying to decide what to do. Since it’s all already a little weird, though, there’s no good reason to stop, so he reaches across to put his hand where Finn’s was, barely hovering over Finn’s dick for a few seconds before dropping it the rest of the way down. “Still weird?” 

“Maybe a little less weird.”

“Yeah?” Puck curls his fingers around Finn’s dick. “ _Good_ less weird?” 

Finn closes his eyes and makes a whiny noise. “Good. Definitely good.”

“Cool.” Puck moves his hand up and down a few times, sort of like he would if he were jerking himself off, then elbows Finn with his other arm. Finn whines again and moves his hips. Puck grips a little tighter, grinning to himself, and picks up Finn’s hand, pulling it to just above Puck’s own dick. Finn seems to go with it, because he puts his hand on Puck’s dick, letting his fingers curl around it.

“Cool,” Finn says. “I mean, you know. Both.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees, because despite the number of girls he’s had sex with, ‘handjob’ wasn’t a thing that they did, and it is unexpectedly cool. It’s not like jerking himself off. It’s better than that. 

Puck kisses Finn, still stroking up and down Finn’s dick, and after a minute or so, Puck pulls them over sideways on the bed. They keep kissing while they jerk each other off, and this time, Puck knows what Finn’s noises and the way his body shudders means, even before he feels it. Puck is still kissing Finn as he comes, too, and then he rubs his face against Finn’s neck. 

“The answer is yes,” he says after half a minute. 

“Huh?” Finn asks, in that dazed voice he gets after they’ve fooled around. “Answer to what?”

“I’m definitely going to make you cuddle.” 

“Oh, I already knew that was yes,” Finn says, rolling onto his side and throwing his leg over Puck’s legs.

Puck squirms a little to get comfortable. “You know, you’re a pretty good boyfriend.” 

“Yeah?” Finn asks. He drapes his arm across Puck’s chest. “’Cause you’ve had so many boyfriends, right?”

Puck blows a raspberry against Finn. “I don’t think you have to have had fifteen to know.” 

“Well, you’re definitely the best boyfriend _I_ ever had,” Finn says. 

“And I would be even if you had had fifteen,” Puck says smugly. “We don’t have to get dressed for hours or something, right?” 

“Right,” Finn says. 

“Cool.” Puck lies there quietly for a few moments, then suddenly feels a little uncertain. “We’re good, right?” 

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

Puck shrugs. “Just checking. You know.” 

“Did I do something?” Finn asks. “Something made it sound like we weren’t good?”

“No,” Puck says quickly, shaking his head. “I… I don’t want to fuck anything up. Anything else up.” 

Finn drags Puck a little closer. “You’re not fucking anything up, okay? I think stuff’s all really good right now. Still weird, but good.”

“That can be our theme for the year, then. Weird, but good.” 

Finn laughs and shifts so Puck’s head is tucked under Finn’s chin. “Yeah. Weird, but good, that’s the three of us.”

 

Puck doesn’t feel the need to update Quinn that he and Finn are _definitely_ doing more than kissing. Especially after Finn figures out about Karofsky being gay, Puck feels like that might bring up questions about labels that he doesn’t know that he or Finn want to answer just yet. Quinn probably figures it out as it is, since Finn completely misinterprets where to put his hand when Puck realizes there’s a detectable bump on Quinn. 

Things are good enough—weird, but good, like Finn says—that while they’re sitting in biology pretending to look through a microscope one day, Puck elbows Finn. “We really should be spies.” 

“I bet the sunglasses they wear are really expensive,” Finn says. 

“The government probably pays for them, though. We have to figure out what kind of spy, so we know what to major in when we go to college.” 

“Spy Science?” Finn guesses. 

Puck winces. “If it’s science, we probably have to actually look through this microscope. Maybe there’s some kind of like ‘international knowledge’ major. ‘Do countries get along’ or something.” 

“Oh, yeah, we could probably do that,” Finn says. 

“Or we learn more in chemistry and write off biology,” Puck says. “You think we should aim for CIA or NSA?” 

“Well, my dad was an Army hero, so that’ll probably help, too,” Finn says. “I think the government like that kind of stuff.”

“Awesome. We should make sure we don’t have to wear suits _all_ the time, whichever kind of spying that is,” Puck says. 

“The undercover kind.”

“A few suits would probably be okay, for meetings or whatever. Headquarters,” Puck says. “Right?” 

“Right. With the sunglasses. The expensive kind,” Finn says. 

“Sure. I just thought we’d look good in the suits.” Technically, Puck had been thinking they’d look hot in suits every once in awhile, but he has to admit he’s not quite as good at flirting with boys as girls yet. 

Finn nods. “Yeah, we’d probably look pretty awesome.” Puck leans back a little on the lab stool and looks Finn up and down once, raising an eyebrow. “What?” Finn asks. 

“Trying to picture that. That’s all.” 

“You’ve seen me in a suit before,” Finn says. “I wore one to your Jewish party that time.”

“You were still twelve, ’cause I’d only turned thirteen that month.” 

“Well, yeah, then the suit was too small for me. Duh,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, so it was several inches ago,” Puck says. “Mostly pre-puberty.” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. 

“So I’m apparently _really_ bad at this,” Puck says with a snort. 

“At microscopes?” Finn asks. “’Cause, dude, I think that’s _both_ of us.”

“Oh my God,” Puck says, shaking his head. “I was trying to suggest something about hotness and suits.” 

“You’d look hot in a suit,” Finn says. 

“I should stick with being direct, is that what you’re saying?”

Finn nods again. “Yeah, that’s probably the easiest for me to understand.”

“So we should be spies that wear suits sometimes, because we’d look hot,” Puck says, leaning closer to Finn, “and then we’d get to take them off.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. “That sounds like a pretty good idea.”

Puck grins. “So we’ll make sure we do really well in chemistry, just in case spies need it?” 

“Sure. We can study a lot,” Finn says. 

“At least we’ll have some kind of incentive. And good company.” 

“And suits to look hot in.”

Puck grins. “Exactly.” 

A couple of weeks later, Puck can’t help being a little amazed that Quinn figured out the math thing, and a little annoyed that she started talking about it, even after he and Finn did say they’d study and everything. It’s true that he’d probably have pretty high math grades if he actually went to class, and it’s true that he can help Finn, but now, Puck is pretty sure, Quinn’s going to want the three of them to all study. Then, Puck suspects, it’ll become an expectation that none of them skip classes. 

That may be the actual downside to having a girlfriend and a boyfriend, because even if Puck could keep something from one of them, it’s pretty unlikely he’d manage to keep it from both of them. Puck ends up being exactly right when they go back to school in January: Quinn tells both of them not to skip any more classes. 

Puck doesn’t really know how, exactly, Quinn knows what might happen or what will happen, but it’s pretty reliable. When she tells Finn that he should bring Puck along whenever Burt Hummel wants to do something, both of them think it’s a little strange, but it ends up feeling more like an extra date night that neither of them have to pay for. It’s also a date night where Quinn doesn’t have to run pee. Puck knows she doesn’t think it’s funny, probably because she’s the one who is having her bladder squeezed by the baby, but for Finn and Puck, it is pretty amusing. 

Burt usually seems a little confused about Puck being there, and he doesn’t seem to really understand for sure if Finn and Puck are really dating each other or if they’re just ‘sharing’ Quinn, but the result of his confusion seems to be that he doesn’t ask or comment, regardless of what they do. It’s during one of those almost-dates with Burt tagging along, when Burt leaves their seats at the baseball game to use the restroom and get more concessions, that Puck brings up the baby and Quinn’s plan to adopt her. 

“Should we at least mention it to Quinn? Even if it’s not a laid-out plan or argument?” Puck says quietly. “I know it’s mostly her decision to have the baby be adopted, but I don’t know. The three of us are good together. We’d be good parents, even at sixteen.” 

“Where would we keep it, though? We’d have to get our own place, and I don’t think they’d let us rent an apartment if we’re all sixteen,” Finn says. 

“If your mom keeps dating Burt, she can move in with him and we all live in your house,” Puck says. “The yard’s even fenced already.” 

“Oh, yeah, that would work!” Finn says. “We should definitely tell Quinn. I bet she’d want to.”

“I mean, she can totally go to Yale still. They give out financial aid for college, just not high school.” 

“Yeah, and the baby can stay with us while she’s in college!” Finn says. 

“We at least ought to mention it before anything’s signed, you know?” 

Finn nods his head vigorously. “Definitely.”

Burt comes back then, and Puck changes the subject. There’s never really a good moment to mention what happens to the baby after the birth, though, because part of Puck doesn’t want to hear a definitive no. Especially after he and Finn figure out a name for her—Beth—it seems almost worse to mention. It’s a little head in the sand or whatever his mom sometimes says, but Puck can’t convince himself to do anything else. 

Then Quinn says Ms. Pillsbury will adopt Beth and let them see her, and it almost sounds like a good plan, maybe for the best, and Puck tries not to think about how they could raise her. It even works all the way through to the moment that she’s born, pink and tiny and something that the three of them—to be fair, mostly Quinn—made. 

That’s when they mention keeping Beth with the three of them, but Quinn has her mind made up. All things considered, Puck thinks they all keep things together pretty well, up until the point that it’s late, Beth has to go somewhere—either the nursery or to Ms. Pillsbury—Quinn needs to rest, and the nurse says Puck and Finn have to leave for the night. 

“We’re doing the right thing?” Puck asks once they’re on the elevator going down. 

Finn shrugs his shoulders, looking sad. “I mean, if it’s what Quinn wants to do…”

“It’s not that Ms. Pillsbury won’t be a good mom, you know? It’d just be good if we got to see her every day and not on a schedule,” Puck says. “That’s probably normal?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “This kinda sucks.”

“Yeah. You coming over?” Since it sucks, at least they’ll be in the same place. 

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Puck isn’t completely sure which one of them takes the other’s hand, or really entirely what the process of getting home is, but sooner than he expects, they’re in Puck’s bed. It sucks for Quinn that they couldn’t stay at the hospital, but Puck’s glad at least the two of them are together. He cuddles up against Finn without saying anything at first, then sighs. “It doesn’t kinda suck. It really sucks.” 

Finn sighs louds. “Yeah. It does. More than I thought it would, even.”

“We’ll see her pretty often. I keep telling myself that,” Puck says. 

“We could steal her back and flee the country,” Finn suggests. 

“You realize I’m not actually very good at criminal activity, right?” 

Finn shrugs, jostling Puck slightly. “Me either, but we could try our best.”

“Probably she’d be prouder of us if we were spies, not criminals,” Puck admits with a sigh.  
“Yeah, probably,” Finn says. 

“Are we allowed to still call her ours?” 

“Sure,” Finn says. “Well, probably.”

Puck shifts on the bed, his arm almost gripping at Finn. “We’ll ask Ms. Pillsbury. She knows Beth’s important.”

“And she knows about us, right? So she’ll let us both see Beth. I mean, Quinn, too, obviously, but you and me.”

“Right. Us, too.” Puck draws a circle on Finn’s side with his finger. “I know we’re supposed to be, you know. Repentant or whatever, but… it’s kind of awesome, you know? We’ve got a kid.” 

“I didn’t pent the first time,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Okay, yeah, me either probably, but my point still holds.” 

“It’s awesome, though,” Finn says. “She’s awesome. We’re awesome.”

“Oh yeah. We all are. We’ll make sure we keep a lot of pictures.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. 

“Maybe we can get our moms or Mr. Schue or someone to tell us we’re doing the right thing,” Puck says after a few moments of silence. “Just, you know. As reinforcement.” 

“Yeah, that would be good,” Finn says. “Maybe our moms _and_ Mr. Schue.”

Puck sighs and nods against Finn’s chest. He lies there for a little longer, thinking for bit. “Hey, Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“You think it’s always going to feel this big? Like, loving someone?” 

Finn’s quiet for a while, just breathing, but then he nods. “Yeah. I think that’s just what love is like.”

“It’s like… scary-cool. You know?” Puck says, but he feels a little more peaceful than he has all day, or at least since Tina found him during class. 

“Yeah. Definitely scare, but also definitely cool,” Finn says. 

“We’ll be okay,” Puck says quietly before closing his eyes. He can feel himself falling asleep, and even though it doesn’t make a lot of sense, he’s pretty sure he can feel Finn falling asleep at exactly the same speed. 

Everything feels a little cloudy for days. There’s conversations and paperwork and scheduling and somehow going back to McKinley, finishing their sophomore year like nothing particular has happened to them. No one says anything to them or ask them any questions, which is probably good because Puck isn’t sure how any of them would react, but it adds to the overall surreal feeling. One day, Quinn was pregnant and, Puck can admit, most of their lives was centered around Beth, and now, nothing is. The only reminder that exists, at least for Puck and Finn, is the substitute guidance counselor in Ms. Pillsbury’s office. It’s not that they aren’t all thinking about Beth, but it feels like there’s nothing much to say. 

By the end of the school year, they have a visit scheduled with Ms. Pillsbury, and after a few weeks of summer, the three of them have a routine over the course of a week. Work, visiting Beth, dates, hanging out, and the occasional get-together with New Directions—all three of them—or the football team—just Finn and Puck. It’s not terribly different than before but it’s also new in a way Puck can’t quite describe. 

Even though it’s definitely the three of them, together, Puck realizes before Quinn does, he’s pretty sure, that she’s just not there with them. She loves them, but she’s definitely not in love with either of them. He doesn’t say anything to her or to Finn, resolving to enjoy what they have for as long as they have it. He likes their relationship. Even if it has to end, there’s no reason to make it end prematurely. 

Even with what ends up being months of warning, Puck still can feel his stomach drop a little when Quinn says “We all need to talk.” It’s three days before Thanksgiving, two days after Sectionals, and the three of them are at the Hudson-Hummel house, but no one else is there. 

“Okay.” Puck exhales, nodding once and glancing at Finn, who looks somehow both sad and resigned. Finn also nods. 

“I know it’ll be strange and perhaps difficult, but I think we can all figure it out,” Quinn starts, and if Puck hadn’t known which conversation it was before, he does now. “As much as I— as _we’ve_ enjoyed the past fourteen months or so, I think it’s time that our relationship ended.” 

Puck nods again, almost automatically, feeling resigned. Quinn nods back at him, and they both look at Finn. Finn shrugs.

“You’ll still hang out with us, right?” Finn asks. 

“Of course, we’ll all still be friends,” Quinn says. “But we won’t be dating.” 

“You want to be single for awhile,” Puck says, and Quinn nods, even though Puck wasn’t really asking. 

Finn frowns, twisting his mouth up. “But, is it okay if we—” He stops talking abruptly and shakes his head. 

“We’ll have to navigate a few things, will be the only stuff to watch out for, but really, didn’t we all know this was coming?” Quinn asks. 

“Breakups still suck, even if you know they’re coming,” Puck says. 

Finn sighs. “Yeah, they do.”

“No one’ll realize at school until after Thanksgiving, at least,” Puck says, because he doesn’t think he can really take anyone’s gratuitous ‘I told you so’ looks. Quinn purses her lips a little but nods. 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. “So, we’re done now? ’Cause I’ve got, like, homework and stuff to do.”

“Me too,” Quinn says. “I’m sure Puck does as well.” 

 

“Uh. Sure,” Puck says, standing up before Quinn or Finn either one can tell him that no, it’s time to go _right_ then. “See you at school, I guess.” He doesn’t really wait for a response, because however much it seemed inevitable, starting out the day with a girlfriend and a boyfriend but heading home for dinner without either _really_ sucks. 

Puck is at least right about the day and a half before Thanksgiving break; no one seems to notice the three of them aren’t the three of them as a unit anymore. There’s no reason for Puck to really expect to see either of them over the break, but it’s still weird that he goes days without hearing from or seeing Finn or Quinn. It’s not comfortable. 

When school resumes on Monday, Puck figures that it’s likely Quinn’s told a few people, and that a few people figured it out over the break, but he still has math with Finn, and they were best friends before everything, so Puck hopes it won’t be too weird. He sits down in his usual seat, next to Finn. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” Finn says. 

“Good Thanksgiving?” 

Finn shrugs. “It was okay, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Maybe it’s not completely weird, but it’s definitely awkward. It’s a little more of a relief than Puck’d like when class starts. The fact that glee club rehearsal is something closer to a rehearsal than sometimes helps, too. 

Puck spends Tuesday watching Quinn and Finn whenever he can without anyone noticing, and the same on Wednesday morning, and after lunch, he decides he might as well take a chance. He waits until his history teacher is searching for a map, then pulls out his phone. 

_Busy this afternoon?_ he sends to Finn after thinking for a few more minutes. 

_Not really_ Finn texts back. 

_Want to come over?_

_Sure_

Puck nods to himself, waiting until the teacher is turned around again to send his last reply. _Cool_

After last period ends, Puck walks slowly towards Finn’s locker, still not completely sure how they’re _supposed_ to act around each other. If he doesn’t get there until Finn’s finished, there’s a little less time in public that they have to figure that out. 

“Ready?” he says as he stops beside Finn. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “You?”

“Yeah.” They’re in the parking lot before Puck says anything else. “It’s not just me that thinks this is a little weird, right?” 

“A little,” Finn admits. 

“Were—” Puck starts, then stops himself. After they’re in Finn’s truck, he starts again. “I mean… did you…” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “I mean, you know. If you…”

“I think maybe we’re not _supposed_ to, but…” 

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Finn says. 

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to!” Puck says quickly. “I just think maybe it’ll be a little more complicated.” 

“Never mind,” Finn says, his face turning red. “I shouldn’t have— you’re right, it’s too complicated.”

“That’s not what I said,” Puck says with a huff. “What I mean is, you know. Do you want to be the one to tell her?” 

“No!” 

Puck snorts as they stop. “See?” He heads inside and waits until they’re both in the bedroom to lock the door. “And neither of us has a ‘reason’ for it, now.” 

“A reason for what? I don’t know what you think we need a reason for,” Finn says. 

“Oh.” Puck drops his backpack on the floor. “Well, never fucking mind, then.” 

“You only ever wanted to because of Quinn,” Finn says. “You can admit it now.”

Puck scowls at Finn and folds his arms across his chest. “Oh yeah? Maybe you only did because of her, then?” 

“I already had her! I didn’t have to do anything with you to keep her,” Finn says, scowling right back at Puck. 

“Then why’d you even come over, if that’s what you think?” 

“Because I still wanted you!” Finn says.

“Then what are you yelling at me for?” Puck asks. 

“You started it!” Finn says. “What are _you_ yelling for!”

“You said we don’t need a reason for anything!” 

“Do we have to have a reason? Can’t just you liking me be a reason? Why’s there gotta be a reason?”

“I mean all the people who aren’t us. Anyone watching. We don’t have a reason for us in their minds,” Puck says. Maybe it shouldn’t matter at all to him, but it does. Most people had kept assuming they were only best friends who happened to have the same girlfriend, not that Finn and Puck were involved, too. People had had opinions about that, but being two guys who were involved together is a different set of opinions and labels. 

“Do we have a reason for us in _your_ mind?” Finn asks. 

“Well, yeah,” Puck says slowly. “That’s not the issue.” 

“Then what’s the issue?”

“Everyone else! And not having one or both of us freak out about everyone else.” 

“So you like me just fine, as long as nobody but Quinn knows about it,” Finn says, frowning. “Or, I guess we’re not letting Quinn know, so you’re fine as long as _nobody_ knows. That’s just great.”

“That’s not— you’re taking it in, like, the worst possible way,” Puck says, still scowling. 

“It’s not like you can mean that in a nice way!” Finn says. “I’m going home. This was stupid.” He walks towards the door, unlocking it and opening it. 

Puck jumps a little, putting his back against the doorframe. “You’re not _listening_.” 

“You’re not saying anything!” Finn says. 

“Didn’t the last week suck?” Puck asks. 

“Well, yeah, obviously!”

“So what happens when Quinn freaks out or your _mom_ freaks out and we end up having to act like we barely know each other?” Puck says. “ _That’s_ what I’m talking about.” 

“So we’ll just not give them anything to freak out over, and I’ll just go home,” Finn says. 

“And that wouldn’t suck, too?”

“If it’s gonna suck either way, then I’ll pick the way that doesn’t make me feel bad about myself because you’re embarrassed of me,” Finn says.

“I’m not embarrassed! Not wanting either of us to have to deal with other people’s shit isn’t the same as being embarrassed, and you _know_ that.” 

“Whatever,” Finn says, glaring at Puck now. “I’m going.”

“Dammit, Finn,” Puck says, putting his hands on Finn’s shoulders and backing him against the door before kissing him. “One of us has to look out for us.” 

Finn struggles a little at first, trying to shove Puck away, but he gives up quickly, kissing Puck back hard. Puck keeps his mouth on Finn’s after that until he feels breathless, pulling away just enough to breathe, with his hands still on Finn’s shoulders. 

“I have a question for you,” Puck says after a moment. 

“Okay.”

“What would you do if you thought someone might do or say something that’d hurt Beth?” 

“Punch them, probably,” Finn says. 

Puck grins and laughs for a second. “Okay, yeah, me too, probably, but since we can’t punch everyone, we have to do things to minimize the chances of that happening, right?” 

“We could _try_ to punch everyone,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, fair enough, we might,” Puck admits. “But I can’t punch all the people who might hurt _you_.” 

“ _I_ can punch them.”

“You’re going to punch your mom?” 

“No! But my mom wouldn’t hurt me,” Finn says. 

Puck sighs. “You know she never liked that you and I were even near the same relationship, even if Quinn was involved. I don’t really trust her. I don’t trust anyone, really, but most people you wouldn’t care about if they said or did something.” 

“Then what do we do?” Finn asks. “Either not see each other or pretend to not see each other?”

“I’m saying… maybe it’s no one’s business but ours.” Puck stares at Finn for a few seconds and then kisses him. “But I missed you.” 

“I missed you too,” Finn says. 

“I _would_ punch your mom. That’s the problem.” 

“Dude! You can’t punch my _mom_!”

“I know that! But I would want to, if she said something,” Puck says. “Don’t you get that?” 

“I get that you’re apparently a mom-puncher now,” Finn says. 

“Dammit, you’re so literal sometimes.” 

“I don’t know what that means, but you’re probably right.”

“What’s the word? Quinn uses it.” Puck frowns, keeping his hands on Finn’s shoulder as he thinks. “Obtuse. Think about it, why would I punch your _mom_?” 

“Because you don’t like her?” Finn guesses. “And you think she doesn’t like you?”

“Oh my god, no,” Puck says. “Think for more than two seconds.” 

“Because you like me?”

Puck shakes his head for a second. “Because I love you, you moron.” 

“Oh,” Finn says. “Really?”

“Is there really any other valid reason to punch your mom?” 

Finn shrugs. “Sometimes I don’t understand why you do stuff, but usually it makes sense to you so I just roll with it.” He grins at Puck. “But I love you, too.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

“I, um. Remember the night Beth was born?” Puck asks, not making direct eye contact. 

“Of course,” Finn says. “I couldn’t forget any of that.”

“What I said?” Puck moves his hands off Finn’s shoulder and nods towards the bed. 

“Which part? The spies part or how we’re awesome?”

“Well, we are awesome, and we should still plan to be spies, but neither of those,” Puck says. He waits for Finn to move away from the door and closes it again. 

“You should probably tell me again, just in case I forgot it,” Finn says. 

“Lie down with me first.” 

“Okay,” Finn says, moving to Puck’s bed and lying down. 

“Better.” Puck lies down next to Finn and moves around until his face is pressed against Finn’s neck. “Remember what I said about love?” 

“That it feels big?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean just Beth.” 

Finn exhales hard, his breath warm against Puck’s head. “Me, too?”

“Yeah,” Puck says, nodding. “I don’t know how I’d _be_ , otherwise.” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. “Me, too.”

“Okay. Cool.” Puck lifts his head up after a moment and grins. “Not that, you know. You’re not really hot, because there’s that too.” 

Finn laughs. “Yeah, you’re hot, too.”

“Yeah? You want to show me how hot I am?” 

“Sure,” Finn says. “You want to make out for a while first?”

“Have I actually ever turned you down when it comes to making out?” 

“Uh. No.”

“Exactly.”

‘First’ turns into ‘until Puck’s mom knocks on the door’, and Puck has to answer her. “Yeah?” 

“Turn off the video games and come eat dinner.” 

“Okay, Mom,” Puck says, trying not to laugh and having to look away from Finn. “I guess we have to come back to the whole ‘other people’ thing after dinner.” 

“You shouldn’t have answered her,” Finn whispers. “We could’ve stayed in here.”

“We can’t stay in here _forever_ , and I only have a couple of hidden Snickers bars in here.” 

“We could order pizza and have them deliver it to the window.”

“C’mon, it’s probably tacos or something,” Puck says as he pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Maybe dessert.” 

Finn sighs dramatically. “Okay. If I have to.”

Puck laughs. “Just long enough to consume nourishment, I promise.” 

It says something about them, probably, that they spend longer eating than they would have thought, and then instead of discussing anything, they keep making out until Finn gets a text from Carole to come home because it’s a school night. Puck figures that it was definitely more fun than talking about other people, and since they technically hadn’t been together as just the two of them before, it makes sense that they wanted one night before they had to discuss everything. 

Still, it means that Puck doesn’t really know exactly what he’s doing when he walks into the school the next day, because he’s convinced that he’s right, that they can’t be open, but that doesn’t change the fact that he also wishes he wasn’t right. He knows that Finn definitely wishes that he wasn’t right, and that makes him sigh a little, too. He stops as his locker first, definitely not stalling at all, before heading down the hall towards Finn’s locker. 

He stops a couple of feet away, watching Finn and hoping no one’s looking too closely at his facial expression. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” Finn says. 

“We didn’t exactly ever _talk_ , did we?” 

“I guess not,” Finn says. “Are we doing that now?”

“Don’t really want to talk out here,” Puck says, gesturing to the rest of McKinley walking through the halls. “Skip first and hang out in glee club? Schue probably wouldn’t mind. I just want to make sure we’re, you know. On the same page.” 

“Okay. Are we really gonna hang out? Or like make out hang out?”

“We have good intentions of talking. We can reward ourselves if we manage it,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. “The faster we do our talking, the faster we can get to the making out.”

Puck grins. “I like the way you think.” The walk through the halls doesn’t take that long, but it gives Puck a chance to think about how they’re walking, casually and not too close, and how they could probably be closer and no one would think too much about it. Even though Puck closes the door behind them, he deliberately leans on the piano instead of sitting down next to Finn. If he sits down next to Finn, they’ll end up doing the same thing they did the night before – making out instead of talking. 

“Okay,” Finn says. “Time to talk fast.”

“I still think that we do better not to be open about it. Because of people at school, because of your mom, maybe even because of Quinn,” Puck says. “But I need to know you’re okay with that. Not forever. Just, you know. _Here_.” 

Finn sighs. “Yeah, okay, I guess.”

“We’re still— everyone still expects us to interact as best friends. We don’t have to avoid each other or anything. And I’m not embarrassed. I’ll tell Mom if you want me to. I’d tell Nana, too, but then she’d want you to come to temple all the time.” 

“I don’t want to go to temple _any_ of the time.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I know, which is why I wasn’t actually going to say anything to her. I figure we lie low at school, we go anywhere but Breadstix on a date, and we make sure we get into a college that isn’t within twenty miles of I–75. Right?” 

“Can we go to the Breadstix in Findlay?” Finn asks. 

“Why would we want to?” Puck asks. “I mean, I guess so. As long as you don’t get that giant stuffed rigatoni thing.” 

Finn makes his grossed-out face. “No way, dude. That thing is the worst.”

“Or too many onions on your salad.”

“You can’t just eat garlic breadsticks,” Finn says. 

“I _can_ , but I guess I can limit myself,” Puck says. “So we’re good?” 

“Yeah, we’re good,” Finn says. “So now we can make out.”

“Exactly. Now we can make out.” 

They do make out, barely making it to second period, and they have a couple of near misses over the weeks before the holiday break. When the holiday break starts, they spend as much of it as possible at Puck’s house, until Carole does start complaining about Finn being gone, so they alternate a little bit. Puck tells himself that it gives them more practice for how to act at school. 

He isn’t surprised that Carole seems pretty happy that Finn has recently had a public breakup, since Puck had already known that Carole wasn’t thrilled about the threesome. It means she makes a few odd comments, but learning to ignore those is probably good for Finn and Puck, too. 

The hardest part of concealing everything is learning to be friends with Quinn again. Both of them still love her, but Puck knows—had known—they weren’t and aren’t _in_ love with her. It had made the breakup with her relatively easy to take, but it also meant that not being friends with her still wasn’t an option that any of them were content with. 

Being friends with Quinn means hanging out with her, though, sometimes when other people aren’t around, and there are definitely patterns of behavior they all have to change. Once they’ve stopped automatically leaning in to kiss Quinn or let her take their arms, though, it means they’re not supposed to be leaning in to kiss each other or put their arms too tightly around each other. That change is its own brand of confusing, especially after they do tell Puck’s mom and Puck’s entire house is for relaxing and dropping their guard. 

Even though Ms. Pillsbury tells them that the spring of junior year is too early to worry about college, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to them, and they spend a lot of time that spring looking up information about college and spies and what they need to major in. They take all of that information to Ms. Pillsbury, who still tells them that they’re doing too much too soon, that she doesn’t meet with people about college until senior year. That might be true, but Finn tells Puck about how Ms. Pillsbury met with him sophomore year about college scholarships, and they decide to just do their own thing, based on what they find online. It can’t, Puck reasons, be that much _worse_ than whatever Ms. Pillsbury isn’t doing. 

They keep meeting regularly with Beth, and sometime over the summer before senior year, her second word is ‘Finn’, and her third word is ‘Fuck’—the ‘p’ sound doesn’t quite happen—and Puck starts to feel a little resentful. Despite everything that Quinn fixed for other people, in the end, Puck knows that primarily Quinn got what Quinn wanted. Maybe she’s right, that it’s for the best that Beth was adopted, but Puck remembers in the back of his mind that Quinn’s goal was to get her acceptance letter from Yale. That wasn’t a goal that had room for anyone else in it, and as much as she’s one of his best friends, he resolves not to forget that fact. There’s a reason that Ms. Pillsbury is raising Beth, and not them, and it’s not because Finn or Puck really wanted it that way. 

When senior year starts, Puck and Finn play up that they’re best friends in their senior year, and since there aren’t a lot of people that New Directions think they could be dating, most questions die down after a few weeks. For a couple of weeks in October, Puck thinks that Quinn might have guessed, but then she sits them down and starts asking them questions about their college applications, and Puck realizes that was the real reason for all the scrutiny and staring in their general direction. 

Puck knows the day that Quinn had to have gotten her letter from Yale, long before she says anything. She’s walking just a little different, carrying her head higher, and Puck mentions it to Finn. Finn agrees with Puck, but it’s still a little over a week before Quinn announces it to the rest of the club. It doesn’t get that much attention, probably because most of them are still confused about why, exactly, Rachel decided to get married over the holiday break. 

The confusing part in Puck’s mind isn’t really that Rachel wanted to marry Jesse or even that she’d want to get married so young, but that the Berrys, who had always seemed reasonable at temple, had actually agreed to let her get married. Puck can remember years of his mom talking about how nice the Berrys were and how devoted they were to Rachel, and ultimately, Puck concludes that the reason they let Rachel get married was because they were a little too devoted to making Rachel happy in the moment. 

Parenting a teenager, Puck decides, might be a lot like parenting Beth as a toddler, because there are a lot of times they have to think about the long-term consequence of indulging her versus the short-term consequence of listening to her be upset. The fact that Rachel got married at seventeen while she’s still in high school _does_ make it a little easier to listen to Beth crying over candy or a toy, sometimes. Puck and Finn agree on that, and Quinn does too, but they all also agree not to tell Rachel that she’s been helpful when it comes to parenting. 

After they win Regionals, Finn and Puck spend two weeks waiting to hear back from all of the different colleges they had applied to. Because they both need good financial aid, and because both of them have some not-stellar grades mixed in, they’d applied to more places than anyone recommended. No one that told them to apply fewer places knows they’re together, though, so Puck and Finn had felt justified ignoring them. 

The eventual letters justify them, too. In the end, they only have two schools to choose from, and an additional weekend of Googling has them deciding on OSU. Maybe they’ll hate international studies and decide not to be spies, but there are definitely worse goals to have starting college, Puck figures. 

As the last day of school and graduation approach, Puck goes over an idea in his mind a few times, and eventually decides that yeah, it’s a course of action he likes. They call Finn’s name way ahead of Puck’s, because of alphabetical order, so once Puck finally gets called up to get his diploma, he takes a circuitous route, past Finn, and stops in front of him. Most of the audience is paying attention to the next person to get their diploma—Lisa Pullen—but Puck knows enough people see that Puck leans over and kisses Finn once before heading back to his seat. He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, grinning to himself. 

He’s pretty sure that Finn’ll be okay with the slight change in plans, even if it shocked everyone else.


End file.
